When streams of blood become so powerful that dikes break.When streams of blood become so powerful that our common places “burn” their common sense.When it is beyond the grasp of word and writing and “should, must and might” become futile.When blood is, nonetheless, still boiling and men, women and children start pouring in. Can we then bar all the doors? When our eyes meet, are we going to turn our backs on them? Can all this be grasped: Isn’t richness murderous when others bleed to death? Isn’t richness suicidal when others die of hunger?When they come knocking on the door so strongly that dikes break.When fences and walls start crumbling because empty bellies and desperate hearts tear them apart.When all this is true then it is time to break the dikes within YOU AND ME. Ein Che Guevara in FilzpantoffelnA Che Guevara in felt slippersAbends bin ich ein Che Guevara in Filzpantoffeln;In the evening, I am a Che Guevara in felt slippers;Ideen rauschen durch meinen Kopf und schwitzen sich in meinenFilzpantoffeln aus;Ideas swirling through my head and turning into sweat in my felt slippers;Der Kopf wird kaltund die Filzpantoffeln erwärmen meine Füße;My head goes coldand the felt slippers warm up my feet;Der Kopf muss dann wild geschüttelt werden; wildwie der Che Guevara; doch meine Filzpantoffeln schütteln alles ab; alles ausmeinen Filzpantoffeln.Then I have to shake my head wildly; as wild as theChe Guevara; however, my felt slippers shake everything off and everything out ofmy felt slippers.Ein toter Che Guevarain lebenden Filzpantoffeln.So untot ist der Filz.A dead Che Guevarain living felt slippers.So undead is felt.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

white ladywalking her white dogblack crowbeak full of somethingstolen from garbageboth headed for home...beeline

To Alan Catlin

Some poets don't have any message.They don't have anything to say.Their task is to say it with beauty...and with feeling.

Fort Dix

Stationed at Fort Dix, myfather, on the way to France,in World War One...although they didn't call it that.I mean they didn't call it World War One.We called it World War One inlater years, and we also calledFort Dix the Spinal MeningitisCapitol of the world.Dad got spinal meningitis there,and so did Jack Kelsey.Dad didn't make it to France.And Jack didn't make back to Wellsville.Insects, two... Wellsville zero.An Irish, and a Taff.Mosquitoes had the last laugh.

Carlisle

Dad was stationed at Carlisle,the Indian school, in 1919.He was a medic. He went homeon a 72 hour pass, and when hereturned, half the base was downwith Spanish Influenza, sonaturally he got it.Spanish Influenza did not haveanything to do with Spain.It was just that Spain was aneutral nation, and their news-papers published the figures.The warring nations had to keepthe figures secret...not let theenemy know your losses.By not sharing information, bylack of cooperation, losses wereby far increased. Death rode rampant.It raged around the world. Oneof the greatest epidemics ever known.It shouldn't have been calledthe Spanish Influenza.It should have been called TheInfluenza That Wiped Out Millionsand That We Were Too DamnDumb To Do Anything About.

When You Come Home

When you come back,nothing around you is real.Sitting in The Modern Diner,or The Texas Hot, the library,the kitchen table at home.The film just rolls along asusual, like it's always done.Nothing is out of place. Butyou're out on the flight linewith Irving, or launching yourBST with Shoemaker, out ofthe motor pool.Jay is telling a joke, "Go back,go back, there are two of them!"They are having a Coke, downin the Biltmore. The girls arelaughing a lot.You're turning into Area 12.Maybe a war has started thismorning, and this is the real thing.One can't tell the difference, andnobody wants you to. Yourbehavior is the same, whetherit's yes or no. Everyone hatesthe Russians, even the little ones,the children. Communists arelike the weather. Everyone com-plains about them, but nobody does anything.You are doing something, here atArea 12, picking up a unit, 4.5megatons of radioactive TNT.The sports fans on TV are talkingabout Bobby Layne. His injuredthumb looks like a peach pit, buthe's gonna play. Tough guy.Choir practice tomorrow. Tourstarts in only two weeks. Herewe are practicing World War IIIdevotedly, protecting the Sinclairrefinery at home, Philco assemblyline in Batavia, that plant inLockport, the father of Tim McVeigh.Fisher Price, Kodak, French's, Stromburg-Carlson, the whole damn Rust Belt.It doesn't seem real, sitting herein the diner, hearing the laughter,the talk. I should be driving outto the flight line, getting ready to kill.

lsmtm4(Show Me the Money-Season4): It is a rap audition program on cable channel. There were so many young people who tried to be idol stars through the show. I had watched the show several times and felt sort of pity for the craze of the show and this poem is about the youngsters who wanted to be the rap idol stars but seemed to get stolen their normal daily life.